“I never said those were flaws.” All humor left her voice.
Shit. He wasn’t strong enough to do what he needed to do. Seren stepped close, hands on his hips as she looked up at him through smoky eyes. She was breathtaking, her dark hair draped over her shoulder exposing her porcelain neck where her pulse beat rapidly. The need she felt was evident in the way her hands tightened on him.
“Seren,” He whispered. Her name was a plea. She could break him if she wanted to and gods help him he wanted to break until he was unrecognizable.
“Icarus.”
His name was honey on her lips.
Icarus lifted his hand and ran it down her neck at where the truth of how she felt beat. Seren let out a small gasp and some primal part of him reveled in it, knowing he was the cause.
He wrapped his other arm around her waist, and she eagerly stepped into him. Not a breath between them. She fit perfectly against him. They did go together well, and he longed to find out just how well in every way. The need for it thrummed inside his chest like a war drum.
Seren leaned in to shatter the last remnants of his control. The portal opened behind her and he easily lifted her, one arm around her waist as he stepped through the portal and in a mere moment they left the possibility of the training arena and into the safety of the library.
Seren looked around, her bag still on the floor where she left it. Her body seemed to slump with defeat, but when she flicked her gaze back up to him, there was the steely determination he had first noticed about her.
“I don’t like losing.” She stepped away from him, but let her hands slowly linger on his stomach, it was like oil and fire. “I know what I want, and I will have it.”
She dropped her hands from him, turned and grabbed her bag, and left him standing with the ghost of her fingers hot with embers.
He had never wanted to burn more.
Chapter twenty-five
Seren Marudas
Thewintersolsticeapproached,yet Seren and Icarus were no closer to finding the Omnis stone. They’d searched far and wide, high and low for a sign, a clue,anythingto point them in the right direction but every lead proved fruitless or left their minds whirring with more questions than they’d had before.
Lily had risen early and left without an explanation of where she was going. Seren sat at her desk, using the soft light of pale dawn to skim the book laid out before her, for a candle's flame could be seen flickering beneath her threshold and the last thing she wanted was to be disturbed. Over the last two days, she’d carefully avoided her sister for more than one reason. She still couldn’t believe the nerve of Bella. Would they ever see eye to eye? Would she never admit to her part in the gaping hole her abandonment had carved within Seren’s chest? How could she though, when she had never known what it was to be left behind? Bella did the leaving, moved on from their father’s death, put their mother and Seren at the back of her mind to start a new life here at Calami.
Strange pain crept from the dark edges of Seren’s mind as she thought back to the first few months when it had been only her and their mother all alone on the farm. She had gone two weeks without hearing another human speak, caring for their mother like she was an infant during the day and curling up in their father’s old coat next to a low burning fire by night. Holding one of Bella’s old books, not to read it, but simply to feel the presence of the sister she missed so much.
But a small voice whispered at the edge of her subconscious. Seren could see how it was possible to let the hurt of the past start to fade. Even now, as the tendrils of her mind gently prodded the wound within her that she would have once shrank away from. Now only tender ache filled the space; an echo of a feeling that had once been so strong and encompassing.
Around her ankles, Tisi coiled snuggly. The feel of her cool scales was the only thing that could calm Seren’s emotions -–although her new augere did help take the edge off.
Thoughtfully, she turned to the next page in the book, the scent it stirred along with small dust particles was musky–half ancient. She wrinkled her nose, stifling a sneeze. It’d been tucked away in a stack of books Lily brought back from one of her hunts in the library.
Mimsey Mae’s Guide to Magical Artifacts. Though Icarus insisted Seren was wasting her time with it–claiming Mimsey was a hundred-year-old well-known conspiracy theorist with more than one loose toadstool in her head–Seren had felt called to the smooth violet cover and gold print.
Leafing through the outrageous, albeit entertaining ramblings, she was beginning to think Icarus had been right when, suddenly, a sharp jolt carried through her body. At the beginning of the next chapter a loose page, folded in half, was tucked flush against the spine, pressed there by a careful touch. Worn and slightly yellowed, the paper itself wasn’t in the best shape but the sketch upon it was intact and captured a haunting beauty. Unconsciously, Seren reached up and pulled the delicate comb from her hair to compare. A young woman who couldn’t have been more than a few years older than Seren was sketched sitting near a tiered fountain, smiling at the artist. In her long dark hair rested Seren’s comb augere. She was certain of it. The single rose and curling vines were unmistakable and her augere seemed to warm at the sight of what must have been its previous mistress. With a start, she noted Arabella’s matching bracelet sketched on the woman’s wrist.Both. She’d had both.
Around her, a sprawling conservatory stretched. The artist’s attention to detail was astounding, giving life to something Seren had only witnessed as dead. She’d never seen anything so wonderful before, and it was only a secondhand rendition. The flowers seemed to leap off the page, twisting among vines and carved statues. At the bottom, the artist had signed their name in an almost illegible smudge,Gwydion, and next to it jotted a little note that time had not been kind to. Seren squinted at it, bringing it so close the parchment almost brushed her nose… she swore she could make out two words for certain,Aisleynne Marudas.But no, that was impossible. She’d been told time and time again that her bloodline was not connected to Calami or witching, at all. That she and Arabella were anomalies. Rarities. Squinting harder, she tried in earnest to decipher the rest of the little note to no avail.
Icarus may know.Heat welled inside her at how quickly the impulse to go to him came to the surface. Their night in the training wing was never far from her mind. She turned to gather the book up, along with her sewing kit and the sleek black dress Lily brought back from her trip to Dunebury, the village just south of Calami. Once in the hall, she paused. Icarus’s weekends were spent in the village, fighting at the docks. She would have to wait for his return to show him what she’d found. In the meantime, she headed straight for the place she’d been spending most of her time since her father’s birthday.
Nightingale Pond curved around the back of the Tower, thick with cattails and marsh grass. On its glassy surface, a family of Spotted Whistlings paddled, dipping their heads into the cool water to capture the small fish darting below them.
Seren settled at the pond’s edge behind the cover of dying inkberry bushes. The ground was cool and damp, half frozen, but she found she didn’t mind so much. Slowly, the gray dawn had lightened to robin egg blue with hints of golden sun peeking through a soft veil of clouds. She arranged the ebony fabric of her dress in her lap. Lily had done her best, and the gown wasn’t terrible, but Seren was determined to make it her own. Perhaps it was nostalgia that prompted her to pull out her sewing kit instead of hunting for a fabrication spell that could have transformed the dress in seconds. She thought of the times spent seated before the fire, her mother’s watchful eyes and soft hands guiding her through the steps it took to become an adept seamstress. At the time, Seren hated it and longed to sneak off to the western field where the grass grew high and she could lounge in the sun, reading. If she’d known the dark days that lay ahead she would have cherished every second spent with a present and loving mother.
She blinked fiercely, eyes burning, and then set to work with fresh determination, threading the floral pattern into the train. This spot by the pond was perfect—she could draw inspiration from the plants around her, weave her favorite flowers into the creation.
She was lost in her work when a twig snapped not far off and two voices followed. Lily and Roxie teetered down the slope in their dark Calami boots, holding the edges of their uniforms up from the muckier spots. At the sight of her sister’s red-haired friend, Seren recoiled further into the bush, whispering a soft spell she learned in Enchantment class that made her body blend with the terrain.
“I don’t understand, Lily. It’s just a dance! I’m not proposing marriage, I simply want you to accompany me to it.” Roxie’s cheeks were flushed scarlet as she followed Lily down towards the edge of the lake.
Lily stopped along the bank, scooping a stone up to inspect before skipping it over the surface. “I am accompanying you.”
